Taylor Mead, in his Orchard Street apartment, 10/17/02, for a piece by C. Carr

The last print issue of the Village Voice, with a startlingly gorgeous ultra-tight crop of Fred McDarrah’s iconic image of Bob Dylan on the cover, rolled off the presses today. The first issue was published, with newsprint and ink, the only options, on October 26, 1955.

The issue is hefty, the way the Voice used to be, including an article looking back and forward (and promising a much-needed digitized archive) by editor in chief Stephen Mooalem; an interview with the paper’s first film critic, filmmakers/poet/artist Jonas Mekas, now 94; R.C. Baker, artist and the Voice’s long time chief art critic and production manager, remembers overseeing the printing of approximately 900 weekly issues; a portfolio of work of Voice photographers (I’m thrilled to be included, with friends and colleagues Fred McDarrah–of whom I often said, “If Fred hadn’t hired me, I’d probably have a real job by now–Sylvia Plachy, James Hamilton, Amy Arbus and Cathy McGann), and “Graphic Content,” new work by Voice illustrators and cartoonists. And then there’s the nearly 50-page family album, black and white portraits of so many of those who made the Voice, shot at the recent reunion party.

I worked for the Village Voice regularly from 1981 until around 2003–I loved it–shooting portraits of filmmakers and artists, art exhibitions and sometimes restaurants. I shot my last cover (Spike Lee) in 2013.

And I feel sentimental about seeing my images in today’s paper (Taylor Mead, 9/11 rescue workers and Ed Koch and Al Sharpton), reproduced really crappy one last time, as newsprint and ink is superseded by pixels. The Village Voice will continue to live online, of course, and I hope, thrive.

Ed Koch and the Reverend Al Sharpton, NYC, 10/8/99, for a cover story by Peter Noel

Tribeca teenagers volunteering as rescue workers, Hudson Street at Duane Street, 9/12/01, part of a series of portraits of 9/11 responders

Harry Dean Stanton, a talented (and longtime) character actor who became a leading man with his indelible portrayal of Travis in Wim Wenders’ 1984 Palme d’or winner, “Paris, Texas,” died Friday in Los Angeles. He was 91.

Stanton, born in West Irvine, KY, served in the Navy in the Pacific during World War II. Returning home, he attended the University of Kentucky, leaving after three years to move to California to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. His earliest TV roles were on popular westerns and he played endless cowboys for two decades. He went on to appear in more than 200 movies and TV episodes.

Attracting attention with his specific gifts, he was cast in more important projects, including “Straight Time” (1978), “Alien,” “Wise Blood” and “The Rose” (all 1979) and “Escape From New York” (1981).

In addition to “Paris, Texas,” Stanton also starred in Alex Cox’s “Repro Man” in 1984. With his amazing face, unique voice–he was also an accomplished singer and musician–and friendly and yet, more than a bit enigmatic demeanor, Stanton was now a star/cult figure. In 1986 he hosted “Saturday Night Live.”

Working with prestigious directors, he had roles in Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988), David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” (1990) and “The Straight Story” (1999) and Terry Gilliam’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (1998). He also appeared in three seasons of HBO’s “Big Love,” garnering significant attention. Continuing to work into his 80s and 90s, he was featured in “The Avengers” (2012) and this year he was part of the cast of “Twin Peaks.”

Roger Ebert applauded Stanton’s gifts when he said, “No film with his presence could be without merit.”

A 21-film retrospective, “Also Starring Harry Dear Stanton,” will open at the Quad on Friday, September 22 and will run through Tuesday, October 3. On Friday, September 29, “Lucky,” starring Stanton as a 90-year-old atheist, living in an off-the-map desert town, will open at the Quad. Character actor John Carroll Lynch’s directorial debut has been described as “a love letter to the life and career of Harry Dear Stanton, as well as a meditation on mortality, loneliness, spirituality and human connection.”

I often see faces in clouds. As the catastrophe, Irma, approaches, a persistent and hypnotic graphic on MSNBC shows the churning. In it I have seen an angry lobster with its tail tucked under, a goldfish with an untidy combover and (for AC) a laughing elephant.

Thoughts (and if you pray, prayers) to Florida, Houston and the surrounding area (decades ago I had a giant bowl of swirled chocolate and vanilla soft serve at a Diary Queen in Port Arthur), the Caribbean, Mexico, and the American West ravaged by wildfires.

As the summer of 2017 slips away, like sand sifting though sunburned hands, Metrograph offers “On Fire Island,” six films set on the barrier island sixty miles southeast of Manhattan, known, particularly before gay men and lesbians gained widespread acceptance, for the queer meccas of Cherry Grove and The Pines.

“Parting Glances” (1986), deftly directed by Bill Sherwood (1952-1990), as both a relationship dramedy and an unsentimental look at the AIDS crisis, stars a young, charismatic Steve Buscemi as Nick, an underground rock star facing his mortality.

Andy Warhol and Chuck Wein’s very funny, very campy “My Hustler” (1965), features a trio–a middle-aged queen, his female neighbor and an aging male prostitue–enjoying their deck chairs as they compete for the attention of plantinum-blonde “Dial-a-Hustler” hunk Paul America.

Broadway dancer and director Wakefield Poole’s “Boys in the Sand” (*from which I stole its punning headline) created a sensation “when he and producer Marvin Shulman opened their gay adult feature at the 55th Street Playhouse in NYC in 1971. Starring Casey Donovan in three sexual vignettes, the film made Fire Island an international tourist destination and introduced gay sex positivity to straight audiences.” It screens with Fire Island ’79, directed by Todd Verow and Patrick McGuinn.

The two other films in the series are “Sticks and Stones” (1970), directed by Stan Lopresto, and Frank Perry’s “Last Summer” (1969).

“On Fire Island” opens today at Metrograph and runs through Sunday, August 13.

To honor the great Jeanne Moreau, who died on Monday at 89, Film Forum is showing the new restoration of Louis Malle’s film noir masterpiece, “Elevator to the Gallows” (1958), which propelled her to international film stardom. Malle, however, always rejected credit for Moreau’s elevation, saying that when the film was released, she had already been “recognized as the prime stage actress of her generation,” cast at the Comédie Française in her 20s, and had appeared in B-movie thrillers with Jean Gabin, films not unlike “Elevator to the Gallows.”

New Yorker critic David Denby has described the film, “Moreau’s nocturnal wanderings are made unbearably poignant by an exquisite Miles Davis jazz score that became famous in its own right… The street scenes, the bizarre, anomalous adventures that Moreau has on her nighttime quest, the anarchic kids who just pick up and go—all this looks forward to the New Wave.”

“Elevator to the Gallows” will screen at Film Forum through Thursday, August 17.

Experienced documentarian Joshua Z Weinstein’s first fiction film, “Menashe,” a universal story of profound paternal love, but set in the insular Borough Park, Brooklyn Hasidic community, fully succeeds in looking at this world with “an ethnographic, sociological lens,” and in merging the messiness of real life with fiction. Shot surreptitiously within the religious enclave depicted in the film, “Menashe” is one of a very few productions to have been performed in Yiddish in 70 years.

Inspired by the life story of the amazingly talented non-professional lead actor, Menashe Lustig, 38, the film remains true to his emotional experience. (Weinstein says , “Menashe looks so proud and yet so sad at thee same time.”) But it hews only as close to actual events as necessary.

Widowed for less than a year, sloppy Menashe, a goofy grocery store clerk, is losing custody of his young son, Rieven (Ruben Niborski), a beautiful boy, to the child’s successful (and judgemental) uncle and his wife because, according to religious law, he must live in a home with a mother. It is a week before Menashe’s late wife Lea’s memorial service and his sympathetic rabbi (The Ruv), allows the boy to stay with his father in his spartan apartment for the period. Rieven and Menashe stumble into a true closeness.

And even though Menashe dramatically bungles his dinner to honor Lea after the service at the cemetery, he shows his community that he’s ready to take on the responsibilities required to raise his beloved son.

“Menashe” will open on Friday, July 28 at Angelika Film Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinema. There will be a Q&A with director Joshua Z Weinstein at Angelika after the 8:10 pm shows on Friday, and Saturday, July 29, and the director will be joined for a Q&A by star Menashe Lustig on Sunday, July 30 after the 5:00 pm show. Weinstein will be at Lincoln Plaza for a Q&A after Friday and Saturday’s 6:25 pm shows, and with Lustig on Sunday, following the 2:15 pm show.

Menashe Lustig and Joshua Z Weinstein, NYC, 3/2/17

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I always enjoy working in my studio to realize the ideas an agency, art director and client have for a film poster. But shoots are rarely perfect. “Menashe” was perfect–the rapport and humor shared by everyone in the room, on both sides of the camera, and the results we all achieved. Thank you so much, Stephen Garrett and Greta Read (Jump Cut ) and Graham Retzik (and all) at A24. Looking forward to the next time.